1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus having a heating vessel for heating and drying garbage such as kitchen refuse in the heating vessel so as to reduce a volume of the garbage and more particularly to such an apparatus which also has a device for deodorizing a smell of a steam generated upon heating and drying of the garbage.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, various apparatuses were proposed for processing garbage which contains a lot of moisture such as that disposed from a kitchen of a restaurant by heating and drying the garbage. For example, Japanese Patent Application, Laid-Open Publication No. 6-226237 published Aug. 16, 1994 discloses one of such apparatuses. FIG. 22 of the accompanying drawings illustrates it. This conventional garbage processing apparatus 14 includes a vessel 1 equipped with an oil heater, a rotary cutter 2 provided in the vessel 1, a motor 10 for actuation of the rotary cutter and a lid 3 for the vessel 1 which opens to form an inlet opening 11 for introduction of garbage into the vessel. The garbage thrown into the vessel 1 is crushed, stirred and heated simultaneously in the vessel 1 to vaporize a moisture included in the garbage. Removal of the moisture results in volume reduction of the garbage. The dried garbage having a smaller volume and weight is discharged from the vessel 1. The garbage processing apparatus 14 also includes a compressor 4, a steam separator 5 and a heat exchanger 7 connected in series. The steam generated in the vessel 1 upon the garbage drying/heating operation is drawn out of the vessel 1 by the compressor 4 and compressed before it is introduced to the steam/water separator 5. The steam is then separated into a hot water W and a gas G. The gas G is expelled to the atmosphere and the hot water W is introduced to the heat exchanger 7 protruding into the vessel 1 through a hot water pipe 6. Heat of the hot water W is utilized for heating of the garbage in the vessel 1. The water W then flows out of the vessel 1 through a discharge pipe 8 and a constant pressure regulator 9.
As mentioned earlier, the illustrated conventional garbage processing apparatus 14 employs the compressor 4 for taking the steam out of the vessel 1. The steam generally contains various hot corrosive materials so that the compressor 4 is damaged by the steam and longevity of the compressor 4 is reduced. In addition, the motor 10 for driving the rotary pulverizer/stirrer 2 is situated under the vessel 1 so that the apparatus 14 has a considerable height. As a result, a position of the inlet opening 11 of the vessel 1 becomes high and introduction of the garbage into the inlet 11 becomes troublesome. Furthermore, the gas G generally contains smelly substances so that discharge of the gas G deteriorates the environment.
A conventional manner of operating the garbage processing apparatus also has several problems. For example, if a timer is used to automatically stop the operation of the apparatus 14, an operator determines a time setting according to his experiences or by his guess. In general, the ending time is set to be considerably later than a theoretical time since a seriously worse situation would arise if the garbage processing apparatus stopped prior to completion of heating and drying of the garbage. Therefore, the garbage processing apparatus is wastefully operated for a certain period after the garbage has been heated and dried. This operation method is costly.
Other garbage processing apparatuses are disclosed, for instance, in Japanese Patent Application, Laid-Open Publication Nos. 5-24601 published Feb. 2, 1993 and 5-39972 published Feb. 19, 1993.